The art of magic is a powerful way to wake up the other side of our brain...

I am occasionally asked why an “education store” would bother selling magic tricks.  It seems that not everybody feels positive about this entertainment art.  Some even see the hobby as a little immature or dishonest.

I have a few things to say.

Brain Spice has a mission. While we implicitly support education, it is to serve an even greater goal.  We evidently sell much more than education materials.  We want no less than to gently encourage kids to more fully engage with their world: to believe in themselves, to become more curious and questioning, more open to a sense of wonder, and more aware of the astonishing subtlety of the human mind.

In that context, there are few things more central to our mission than the magic tricks in our store.

Many years ago, I used to sell a wonderful science gadget known as a “Levitron”.  This is essentially a levitating spinning magnetic top, which I fervently hope to sell again some day.  The effect was absolutely magical: a little spinning top that hovered happily for a minute or so, an inch above its base.  It nearly always made jaws drop.  While I waggled my fingers beneath this miraculously levitating thing, we would discuss how and why it worked, and how the inventor succeeded despite a century-old physics law declaring emphatically that such a thing was impossible.

One day, I demonstrated this levitating top to a boy and his dad.  To my surprise, the boy crossed his arms, turned his back, and declared “It’s just magnets”.  And he walked away.

I am a great fan of the writer and researcher Dr Iain McGilchrist, who believes that we live in a predominantly left-brained world.  Our left hemisphere is great for certain very useful things; for example it enables us to dissect, analyse, deduce, classify, compare, and symbolise.  But the left hemisphere of our brain, by its very nature, also has little appreciation or interest in the integral or greater whole, its uniqueness, or its shifting and everchanging beauty; the music, mystery, and wonder of the world.  If we become too cynical, anxious or analytical, we risk losing much of the potential richness and magic from our lives, and these things are just as much our birthright. 

Our mission at Brain Spice is to encourage the latter.  That is why we sell actual butterfly chrysalids, as well as butterfly lifecycle charts.  It is why we sell magic tricks as well as logic puzzles.

The art of magic is a powerful way to wake up the other side of our brain.  Like all forms of entertainment, it is a contract between the performer and the audience: the audience suspends disbelief for a few moments in order to be entertained, and is left with a confounding mystery, and ideally, a reminder of what child-like wonder feels like.  The magician on the other hand, usually with their heart in their mouth, does their level best to create a convincing illusion of the impossible.  Like all of the best hobbies, magic allows us to surprise ourselves with success, and boost our self-confidence.  It can also create a wonderful, spontaneous and memorable moment with our audience... or at worst, some shared laughter.

 Of course, once awakened, our right hemisphere doesn’t need illusions to find magic.  Today, the sky is a clear blue, and the ocean has found a new calm after yesterday’s storms.  There were kids playing with a ball at the park, shouting with excitement.  A butterfly, rarer these winter days, fluttered by me as I hung up the washing.  Magic is everywhere.  We just need to be occasionally reminded to look.

Please have yourself a most magical day, and stay curious!